


The Artist's Model

by havisham



Category: Original Work, Poses - Rufus Wainwright (Song)
Genre: 1960s, Creative License, Family Dynamics, Implied/Referenced Suicide Attempt (Past), Literary References & Allusions, M/M, Melancholy, New York City, Nude Modeling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-21
Updated: 2013-09-21
Packaged: 2017-12-27 05:42:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/975100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/havisham/pseuds/havisham
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A shallow pretty-boy falls in love with a compulsive liar and everything goes astonishing well for them both.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bette](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bette/gifts).



> With sincere apologies to Rufus Wainwright.

Two weeks after Oscar had been thrown out of the Hudson School of Art for the persistent inability to pay the tuition, skipping classes far too often, and his work failing to improve at all (as well as other major offenses), he was starting to get desperate. 

His job had ended on equally ignominious terms and the landlady at the boarding house where he stayed threatened to rent out Oscar’s little room to someone who could afford it. The room itself wasn’t much to write home about, just a narrow bed and cheap dresser and a closet the size of a matchbox. There was a small dirt-grimed window that overlooked an alleyway at the back of the building. The bathroom, shared between four men, was down the hall and always in a perpetual state of diseased filth. 

But even all of this was better than nothing. 

He had taken to hanging around the coffeehouse where the art students went after classes. Some of his former classmates would share a bite or two of lunch with him, and half-listen to his tale of woe. It helped that it was a short tale and Oscar, curled up in a chair with his long hands on his face, looked good telling it. Oscar, who had nothing in the way of material goods -- even his art studentship had been paid with a scholarship, long since dried up -- did have one thing to recommend him; and that was his face.

There was no use denying it. Oscar was beautiful, with a sculpted face and clear, olive skin. His eyes were dark and fringed with long lashes and they flashed when he spoke passionately, which he often did. He had inherited from his mother thick black hair that had a tendency to curl, and was, at times, impossible to comb. Today, it fell onto his face, nearly covering his eyes. Oscar pushed it away, impatiently. 

Of course, not everyone proved sympathetic. One such person was Cece, a second-year sculpture student who traveled around with her own cloud of dust. She coughed and said, “For god’s sake, Oscar, what are you loafing around here for? Don’t you have work or something?” 

“I was fired,” Oscar said morosely. “They said I had been stealing, which was categorically false. As if they had anything worth stealing. Now I go around, filling out applications and everyone smiles and nods and watches my ass as I leave, but no one calls me back. I don’t know how I’m going to keep my room.” 

“The problem with you is that you don’t look like a good worker,” Cece said, with a thoughtful sip of her coffee. “Fix that and you’ll be rolling in it.”  
“You’re a good friend, Cece,” Oscar said with a deep sigh. 

“Sure I am! Isn’t there someone you can stay with? Family?” 

Oscar shook his head morosely. His mother had been the only child, the daughter of a man from Palermo, and an Irish girl from Williamsburg. Oscar had never known his grandparents except as faded, colorless people in old photographs. They had quarreled with their daughter on the eve of the Second World War, when she came home and declared that she was married and pregnant, and her husband, a soldier from California, was on his way to fight in Europe. He never came home -- at least, not to them -- and Oscar and his mother had to make their own way in life. 

Cece, whose attention had wandered, put down her coffee cup. She said, “If you’re really desperate, I heard Thermopolis is looking for a model for his amateur life-drawing class. You might catch cold, but it’s forty dollars a day for doing nothing.” 

It was not _exactly_ doing nothing, Oscar knew. 

He had done some modeling before, though that was in one of the shop windows of the big department stores downtown, where the artistic director had had the big idea of using live mannequins to sell that season’s latest fashions. With the flood lights shining down on him, it was hotter than hell in that window. The pancake makeup that they troweled on him, from hairline to sternum, didn’t help matters one bit. The only thing that stopped Oscar from breaking entirely was the crowds that had gathered outside to look at him. It seemed a shame to disappoint them. 

(And that sixty dollars a day he got for his troubles didn’t hurt either.) 

Once, he had winked at a little girl, dressed in red. Delighted, she had winked back. 

Another time, a well-dressed man of indeterminate age had lingered outside Oscar’s window for long time, studying him intently. So hard was his scrutiny that Oscar could not stand still. Go, go, go, he chanted inside his head, but the man would not budge. The more Oscar wanted him to go, the more fixed the man seemed to become. Finally, Oscar could take no more. He had to move. So he shifted his stance a fraction of an inch, the makeup tickled his nose and -- goddamn it -- he sneezed, nice and loud. The man wasn’t there anymore, but as luck would have it, the art director was. He had been passing through at that very moment with his bosses and their wives, and the bosses of his bosses and their wives. 

Oscar was fired on the spot. 

Still, he took Thermopolis’ number from Cece, who gave it grudgingly and left. He begged use of the coffeehouse's telephone and dialed him up. It was Thermopolis’ wife who answered, and secretly, Oscar was relieved. He knew she liked him. They got to chatting. Of course she remembered him from the art school! What was he doing now? She had seen some of his paintings, and of course Niko thought they were great, just great! Did he have a girlfriend? She would bet that he beat them off with a stick! 

_Yes, yes_ , Oscar agreed hurriedly. He asked if he could talk to Mr. Thermopolis. Mrs. Thermopolis laughed and said, sure, sure, he’s at the school now, Oscar could talk to him more easily than she could. 

After a protracted series of goodbyes, Oscar put down the phone and gathered his things and went out. The weather had turned foul in the time he had spent in the coffeehouse, rain spattered against the pavement and ran into the gutters. The traffic was heavy and more than one car splashed the bottom of Oscar’s pants. 

When he finally got to Thermopolis’ classroom, everyone else had already left, and Thermopolis himself was packing up. Oscar hurried in, knowing that he looked like something left out overnight, but he had to try. “Mr. Thermopolis!” he called into the emptied classroom. “Are you there, sir?” 

Thermopolis lifted his head and scowled. “What do you want, Oscar?” 

Oscar gave the man his best, most charming smile. “Mr. Thermopolis, you remember me? I’m Oscar -- Well,” he interrupted himself. “I guess you do.” 

“I thought you got thrown out, and good riddance too,” Thermopolis said, taking his things and heading for the door. Oscar followed him out, trying to not to throw an easel at the man’s pumpkin of a head. 

Instead, Oscar made his voice soothing as possible, and held open the door for him. Mildly, he said, “Please, Mister Thermopolis, I heard you were looking for a model for one of your classes. Is that true? I could do it -- I’ve modeled before, you know.” 

Thermopolis stopped at the door and turned to him, his eyes cold, his mustache quivering with indignation. “Absolutely not. Now if you’d excuse me, I have dinner waiting for me.” 

“Please, Mr. Thermopolis! I’ll -- I’ll take a pay-cut. I need to make my rent this month.” 

Thermopolis looked back at him, with a new, calculating look in his eye. “Fifteen dollars a day.” 

“Mr. Thermopolis, be reasonable! I know I said I’d take a pay-cut, but a man’s gotta eat! I can’t take less than thirty-nine.” 

“You won’t take less? You get thirty and that’s it.” 

“Thirty-eight.” 

“Never. Thirty-five.”

“Thirty-nine.” 

“Thirty-six and I don’t tell the dean that you’ve been here.” 

“It’s a deal!” Oscar took Thermopolis’ hand and shook it, before he had chance to change his mind. 

The man looked ready to argue, but then he sighed and said, “Come in at six next Monday. If you’re even a minute late, the deal’s off, understood?”  
“Understood. You won’t regret this, Mister Thermopolis!” Oscar streaked past him and ran to the door. He slipped a little on the wet tile.

Thermopolis muttered, “Like hell I won’t.”

*****

The studio was wreathed in cigarette smoke. The rain had continued all through the weekend into Monday, and the skies were grey and close overhead, promising more storms. Someone had, with great difficulty, opened one of the large windows that dominated the left side of the room. Cold, wet air came over to Oscar, who suppressed a shiver. His clothes were already bundled up into a grocery bag, and the lower half of his body was wrapped in white sheet. In the back row of easels, Thermopolis sat, his eyes narrowed.

_Any trouble,_ he mouthed and Oscar nearly rolled his eyes but caught himself just in time. He sighed and looked down, toeing a piece of grit on the floor intently. 

“Hello? May I ask you a question?,” said a dark-haired girl in the front row. She looked nervous, like she had never seen an almost-naked man before. She probably hadn’t. 

“Hi,” Oscar said, looking at her and smiling. “I probably shouldn’t be talking to you right now.” 

“Oh, right, of course, I know that -- sorry,” she said, practically cringing, and Oscar wondered how old she was. The class was open to anyone over eighteen, but she looked young, dressed in a grey school uniform that he didn’t recognize. 

He said, “It’s fine, really, the class hasn’t even begun yet. What’s your question?” 

She nodded, her eyes wide. “It’s just -- the syllabus said there would be live-drawing, and I was wondering …” Her voice dropped down, sheepishly, “Are you going to be … _naked_?” 

“In a little while, yes.” 

“Oh,” she said, and hid her face behind a block of newsprint. 

“It’s all alright, honey, don’t be nervous,” said the girl’s neighbor, an older heavy-set woman who wore her curly grey hair on the top of her head, in a neat bun. “There’s really nothing to be afraid of. I’ve had four boys, and I’ll tell you, if I never see a --” 

“Oh!” The girl pressed her hands over her ears and shook her head. Eventually it came out (when she had returned her hands to her charcoal sticks, looking still slightly cautious) her name was Adele, and she had taken the class on the advice of her brother. “He wants me to get out of the house now and then,” she confessed, looking down. 

Her neighbor, Mrs. Rouse snorted. She spilled out her life story as soon as she sat down. A mother of the aforementioned boys, she had grown up in Georgia before coming to the city, looking for her wayward husband. She hadn’t found him but decided to stay there anyway, going on to twenty years now. Taking the class had been her eldest, Donny’s, idea, something to keep her mind and fingers busy in the evenings. 

She had plenty of advice for Adele, who listened meekly. “Don’t let them push you around, it gets to their heads.” Mrs. Rouse shot Oscar a challenging sort of look. “Isn’t that right?”

Oscar said fervently, “It sure is.” 

The class was composed mostly of women, with a few men scattered in. When Thermopolis harrumphed and huffed and told Oscar get on with it, there was a definite air of giddiness in the room. When Oscar put aside his sheet, there was a wave of whispers and giggling all throughout the room. That continued on as he did each successive pose, though, eventually, the room became silent, the only noise being of Thermopolis’ instructing some particular student and flipping of pages and the scrape of charcoal against paper. 

Oscar knew that, eventually, he stopped being a person to them, and became a sort of shape to be committed to paper, challenging in its curves and depressions, its proportions and sizes, but nothing more and nothing less. 

After that, it became easier, and the class slipped by. Oscar collected his money at the end, and was instructed to come back on Wednesday, and then Friday. The weeks slipped by quickly. Sometimes there was another model to pose with, sometimes Thermopolis wouldn’t want him at all. 

Oscar kept a roof over his head, which was the most important thing. He was still looking for a better gig at the coffeehouse when he heard rumblings of a big party happening in one of the fly-by-night places, the location of which was only given out through a crumpled piece of paper, passed from person to person. 

He had received one such scrap of paper and had eyed suspiciously. 

“What’s the matter, Oscar?” cried some young wit. “You have to come to the party, you’re sure to find someone who will appreciate that marble complexion of yours.” 

“What Oscar really needs a sugar-daddy, poor chump,” someone else chimed in. 

“Shut up, all of you,” Oscar said lazily, and draped a piece of newspaper over his head. He closed his eyes for a moment -- or maybe it was more since the light had changed and his stomach rumbled, empty. Cece had come by with her girlfriend, Sarah, and she said, “Aren’t you coming to the party, Oscar?” 

He yawned and said, “I’m hungry. Buy me dinner?” 

Sarah laughed but Cece snapped back at him: “Every other sentence out of your mouth is you asking for a favor.” 

“You can have my sandwich, Oscar,” Sarah said, fishing out a squashed-looking packet from her bag. At his dubious look, she said encouragingly, “It’s peanut-butter and honey.” Oscar accepted the sandwich with a nod, and eating it, he followed them out. He would go to the party, he decided, if only because he had nothing else to do that night. 

The party was a disappointing affair, the music was too loud and Oscar wished later that he hadn’t gone. As it was, he stood off from the crowd and drank the free booze from a red plastic cup and glared at anyone who dared to approach him. The walls themselves seemed sticky and he leaned away from them, craning his neck around to find Cece and make his excuses to go home. 

That was when he heard someone exclaim, “Why, it’s the boy from the window!” 

Oscar turned to see the man who had observed him so closely so long ago. The strange thing was that Oscar also recognized him immediately. The man looked more out of place here than he had outside the department store several Christmases ago. Still he came forward and shook Oscar’s free hand and said his name was Arthur.

He looked older now, of course, no doubt so did Oscar. Without his hat and coat, Arthur looked strangely casual, though there was something about his face and demeanor that -- _He has a lean and hungry look._

Well, anyway, Oscar had always been careless about his Shakespeare. 

He tried to think of what to say. _Hello_ seemed wrong, and _yes, it’s me, how did you guess?_ That was too long. He settled for the truth, as far as that went: “You know, you made me lose that job.” 

Arthur gave him a politely inquisitive look. “How so?” 

“You distracted me and I moved, just as my boss came by.”

A smile cut into Arthur’s pale face. “Then perhaps I can help you. You can pose for me this summer.” 

“I’ll think about it,” Oscar said, though he just finished doing so. He accepted Arthur’s proffered card and pocketed it, intending to throw it away, by and by. 

But for now, he accepted another drink.

*****

The last day of class, someone brought in a bouquet of red roses, and someone else brought cake, and another, several bottles of soda. Some of the roses were threaded into Oscar’s now longish hair. (He still hadn’t gotten it cut, due in part to laziness, and stubborn refusal to change. He went about with his hair tied up, mostly.)

In the end, the students pinned their very first and their very last efforts on the walls, and the sunset washed them all into a benevolent golden-yellow. Oscar smiled to see to them, and the improvement in each of them. Thermopolis, too, was pleased, and in a kindly mood said to Oscar that his wife expected him to come to dinner soon. 

Oscar grinned, and said he would. 

After class, Adele approached him when he came back dressed. She was still shy, but she had a determined edge to her. Of all the students in the class, she had improved the most. Her first drawing was hesitant and shaking, but the last was more confident and bold. “I’d like to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art sometime,” she confessed. “See the Rembrandts and the Reubens.” 

Oscar nodded, “I like Turner, myself. Of course, if you have a chance, you should go.” 

She nodded, and her mouth opened to form words that failed to appear. After a moment, she gave him an awkward nod before ducking down to pick up her bag, her face burning red. Mrs. Rouse was finished with her piece of cake and gave Oscar a long hard look, but he felt innocent in the matter. 

Oscar took some of the roses home with him. In the ride home in a packed subway, he buried his face in the flowers and breathed in. And though they gave only a ghost of a scent, he was comforted.


	2. Chapter 2

Someone was knocking on Oscar’s door, making the thin wood shake. “Oscar! You’ve got a visitor!”

Oscar rolled over in his bed and banged into the wall with a groan. He cursed quietly but sincerely as he stumbled around, pulling a shirt from the top of the dresser and pants from the floor. He peered out into the hallway and found it empty. There were voices coming from downstairs, and Oscar nipped into the bathroom quickly. He washed up and brushed his teeth and spat out the rest before checking the grimy mirror and nipping back into his room. He made it -- almost. 

There was someone on at his door, a stranger who turned to him and said, “I’ve called twice in as many days and no one would tell me how to get in touch with you. Well, come on then.” Whoever he was, he looked unbearable, his blonde hair slicked back and his jacket hooked over his shoulder. He wore a shirt so white that it glowed in the dim hallway. 

He wasn’t _exactly_ good looking, but he was very clean and that was almost as good.

“Excuse me, but who are you?” Oscar said, looking at him with narrowed eyes. 

“My stepfather hired you. Oscar, right?” He took out creased card with the name A. Hallward printed on it, and handed it to Oscar. Scribbled on the back of it, in Oscar’s heavy black handwriting, was his name and address. 

Oscar looked back at him, bewildered. The stranger stuck out his hand -- a large hand with a square-cut and soft, a rich man’s hand. “I’m Leo. The car is in my garage, and it’ll take half-an-hour to get there.” 

It came back to Oscar all at once. His drunken agreement to pose for Arthur, and falling into a taxi at the end of the night. He didn’t know how he had even had the wherewithal to remember and write down his own address. 

Leo watched him closely. “It’s two-hundred dollars a week, food and board included -- the board being my mother’s house in the country.” 

_Oh, that was how._

Oscar stuck his hands in his pocket and said, “What am I supposed to do?” 

Leo shrugged. “Pack?” 

Oscar only had one battered suitcase and even with all of his clothes packed in, there was still some space left. After a second of hesitation, he put in his sketchbooks and charcoals, and everything else he could get his hands on. 

Afterwards, his room took on an abandoned look, the old lace curtains swinging in the invisible breeze. Leo, who had let himself in and seated himself on Oscar’s bed whistled, impressed. “This place is _grim._ ” 

“Yeah? Not all of us can afford houses in the country,” Oscar said. 

Leo smiled brightly. “Oh, I know.”

*****

The subway ride was long and spiced up only intermittently by the flow of people in and out of the car. Leo sat in the seat across from Oscar and read a slim paperback novel he produced from his pocket. They did not speak again until Leo got and nudged Oscar’s foot. “We get off here,” he said.

They walked up the stairs from the subway station on to a busy street. There was a small parking garage on the corner, and the valet in the booth outside it seemed to know Leo. They nodded to each other, and the valet disappeared. Oscar set his suitcase down for a moment and wiped his forehead. Beside him, Leo hummed under his breath and looked at his watch. 

The valet came out again driving a cherry-red convertible, the American Dream on wheels. Oscar’s mouth fell open several inches when he saw it. 

The valet stopped in front of them and hopped out, tossing the keys to Leo. 

“Thanks, Pete,” Leo said cheerfully, giving him a few dollars in tips.

“No problem, sir,” Pete said, running a revenant hand across the hood. 

Leo got into the driver’s seat and looked back at Oscar, who was still standing on the pavement, his mouth still a bit gape. Oscar closed it with a snap, once he saw Leo’s amused look. The car’s engine purred and its coat of paint gleamed in the afternoon sun. 

“Hop in,” Leo said and reached into his pocket and took out a pair of black sunglasses and tossed it to Oscar who caught it easily. When examined, Oscar saw that it was a brand that he could never afford. He put it on anyway. 

“It won’t do to look so dazzled,” Leo said, “and you can put that in the back,” -- meaning Oscar’s suitcase. Oscar did so and slide into the passenger seat, the leather cool and smooth against his back. Oscar sighed aloud. 

“Can you drive?,” Leo asked as he rummaged around in the glove compartment and fished out another pair of sunglasses and put that on. 

Oscar shook his head. “I never learned how. I was born in the city.” 

“Yeah?” Leo said, as he craned his back as he got out of the parking lot and began to drive down the street. “I was born in Montana, if you can believe it.”

Oscar said sharply, “Your mother own a ranch there too?” 

“Something like that.” 

It was Sunday and the traffic was not heavy, but still it seemed to take forever to clear the tunnel and get onto the highway, heading east to Long Island. When Oscar had been very young, he was convinced that the city was all that there was and all that there ever would be. His mother had taken him to Coney Island once to see the ocean, which was a flat grey mirror reflecting the sky, and he had been forced to revise his theory. The city was most of everything and the rest was the ocean. Of course, Oscar was a grown-up now, and knew that other places existed. He just wasn’t sure he believed in them.

Oscar had to ask. “But why are you are driving? Wouldn’t it be better to take the train there or the bus?”

“And miss an opportunity to drive this beautiful girl?” Leo caressed the steering wheel lovingly. “That’d be downright Un-American of me, wouldn’t it?” 

Oscar lapsed into an offended silence, and that lasted until Leo reached for the radio dial. He glanced over at Oscar and said, “Do you mind if I put on some music?” 

Oscar leaned back against his seat, feeling the soft leather press against his skin. He closed his eyes for a moment. “Not at all.” 

Eventually, the city fell new subdivisions, where only a short time ago, there had been potato fields. They paid a toll, crossed a bridge. The highway was still under heavy construction, with bright orange signs cautioning vehicles to go slow, take care, and especially not to hit any of the construction workers. The radio crooned and Oscar’s eyes grew heavy until he fell asleep. He woke up again with a crick in his neck. They were in a gas station parking lot and the gas meter was full. Leo looked less immaculate than he had in Oscar’s room. His hair was windblown and messy, even with the pomade, and there were spots of sweat on his shirt. 

He fumbled with a match and looked almost human. 

He glanced over to Oscar and saw that he was awake. He said, “I thought it would be a shame to wake you -- you were a real Sleeping Beauty. Want a cigarette?” 

“Sure,” Oscar said, taking the proffered cigarette and leaning in to reach for the match. He watched Leo through his lashes as the smoke from their cigarettes floated into the evening sky.  
“You’re doing it again,” Leo said as they got o to the highway again. 

“Doing what?” Oscar asked, staring at him. When Leo didn’t reply, he looked away and began to blow smoke into the passing wind. The highway ended, eventually, and Leo turned off into a rural road, which was mostly dark, interspersed with the lights of distant houses. There was, however, one gas station on the side of the road, and there they stopped.  
Leo got a styrofoam cup of coffee that he grimaced at drinking. Oscar bought a softened Hershey bar that he split down the middle and offered up a piece to Leo. Leo took it, his tongue briefly touched the tips of Oscar’s fingers. 

“Now who’s doing it?” Oscar said, raising his eyebrow. 

“Doing what? Anyway, how can you stand this stuff? It’s awful,” Leo said, licking the remaining chocolate from the corners of his mouth. 

It was near midnight when Leo turned off the road into a smaller, graveled. Oscar sat up and looked ahead. He couldn’t see a damn thing except what the car’s headlights. The woods surrounded the gravel road, and Oscar listened hard for the sound of the ocean. 

“It’s about a mile east,” Leo said, reading Oscar’s look. 

“Oh,” Oscar said, trying not to sound too excited. At last, white house emerged from the woods. A porch-light was on, and otherwise everything was dark. Leo parked in front of it and sprang out, Oscar following behind him, dragging along his suitcase. 

The house itself was not entirely impressive -- the white paint was peeling, the hedges needed clipping -- but it was large and had once been a prosperous-looking place. When Leo rang the bell, it also seemed to be empty. 

“Wait,” he said and Oscar sighed. It felt like his suitcase had gained a hundred pounds on the trip over. Leo bent down to get a key from an rock, half-hidden by some bushes. Oscar shifted his stance and made a quiet study of Leo’s back. “Got it!” 

The door swung open to a sparsely furnished front-hall. Leo called out, “Mother! Jess! Arthur! Anybody here?” 

There was a faint click-click of paws against hardwood floors. A dog appeared, large and dark. Leo bent down and stroked his head, saying softly, “Hey, Jasper. How are you doing, boy?” 

The dog wagged his tail and looked over to Oscar curiously. Leo got with a rueful chuckle. “Jasper isn’t the best of guard-dogs.” He went in and flipped open the lights. 

“The rest of them must have gone out.” Leo turned to Oscar and said, “Do you want some dinner or something? There’s usually something in the fridge.” 

“No, I think I’d like to get to bed, if that’s okay.” 

“Sure it is. I’ll show you where your bedroom is, come on,” and saying this, Leo went up the stairs, Jasper following behind him. Oscar lugged his suitcase up a flight of stairs and then another, until they came to the second floor. They went down the hall until Leo stopped at the third door on the right. He opened the door and flicked open the light to reveal a small bedroom, plainly furnished. 

“Well, it’s not exactly the Ritz, but..,” Leo began to say, ruffling his hair, but Oscar interrupted him.

“I like it,” Oscar said, looking around. 

Leo smiled. He went in and opened a door the right. “Private bathroom. That way you don’t have to share with me. I’m down the hall, you see.” 

They stood awkwardly for a moment before Leo said, “Well, I’ll leave you to it. C’mon Jasper.” The dog went on ahead of him, and Oscar followed them out. 

He said, “Thanks for your help.” 

Leo smiled and said, “Don’t mention it.” 

He turned to leave, and then seemed to change his mind. “Oscar?”’ 

“Yeah?” 

“This is just to say -- Arthur can be a little intense. Don’t worry about it, all right? He’s treated as something of a genius, and he likes to be indulged.” 

“Oh,” Oscar said. For the first time he realized that he had never seen any of Arthur’s paintings. Why had he come here? It was due to a stupid impulse and a handsome boy, nothing more. His head hurt. “Thanks for the tip.” 

“It’s nothing.” 

Oscar showered in the claw-footed tub and dried himself on a towel that hung on a hook on the door. He padded out of the bathroom and finally took a good look at the room he would be staying in. It was small, but well-proportioned, the bed big enough to stretch out it. It was one of those Victorian brass monstrosities, all fittings and tubes and rounded ends. The sheets were fresh, and the blanket was clean and warm. Oscar got in without much ceremony. 

Besides the bed, there was a bedside table and the lamp on it. In one corner of the room there was small desk and wardrobe on the other. The floor beside the bed was covered by a red-and-green hooked rug. 

A window looked out into a dark sea of trees. 

Oscar listened and could hear no cars, nothing except the sounds Leo and Jasper moving downstairs and the insects humming outside. He had no idea they could be so loud. He was a hundred miles from the city, but it might as well be another country.

*****

Oscar woke to sunlight against his face. He lay still for a moment, trying to get his bearings, remembering everything that had happened the day before. He got up, the bed shaking at his activities, and went to the window. Outside was blue sky and trees, a kind of thing he’d only seen in books. There were sounds coming from downstairs, and so Oscar headed to the bathroom to get ready.

But when he went down the steps and walked into the kitchen, everything went quiet except for the sizzle of bacon in the pan. A woman looked up from a newspaper spread before her and a girl, drinking a glass of orange juice, put it down and giggled. Leo, who was at the stove, motioned for him to come in. 

“Mother, Jess, this is Oscar. He’s the artist’s model -- Arthur hired him for the summer. Oscar, this is my mother, Isabel, and my sister, Jessica. Don’t be put off by the claws, she’s a sweetheart.” 

Jess rolled her eyes. She was a pretty girl in her mid-teens, her hair was darker than her brother's, but they shared the same sort of features, the same bright blue eyes, the same slightly long nose and mischievous smile. 

She studied Oscar closely for a moment and then asked, "Do you like horses?"

Oscar said, "I've never really seen them close up."

She beamed. "I can show you Ivanhoe. He's boarded on a farm near here..."

"Don't get ahead of yourself, Jessica, Oscar is here for work," said Isabel. She was a cool blonde woman in her early forties -- there was something untouchable about her, something remote. She said to Oscar, "Sit down," in a tone of voice that made it clear that she was not used to being disobeyed. 

He sat down, and Leo slid down next to him. Isabel poured more coffee for herself, and then for Leo and Oscar. She said, “The problem now is that Arthur isn’t here -- one of the professors in his department took a sudden leave of absence and he has to finish out the semester before coming down. He won’t be here for a few more days yet.” 

Oscar sipped his coffee. _There’s the catch. I knew it was too good to be true._ He said, crisply, “I can take the bus back to the city this afternoon, but I’ll need a ride to the station.” 

“No!” Leo said, sitting up, his long arm swinging out and hitting against Oscar’s chest, lightly. “Stay as my guest. I insist. It gets so boring, being cooped up here by myself--” 

“Gee, thanks,” Jess said. 

“ You know what I mean. Can’t he stay, Mother?” 

Isabel gave Oscar a penetrating look and then went back to her newspaper. “If that’s what Oscar wants, dear.” 

Leo turned to look at Oscar. “Are you going to doom me to boredom and frustration for the rest of the summer? Would you do that to me?” 

“Because we’re such old friends, having met just yesterday,” Oscar said, reaching for a piece of toast. Leo intercepted him, snatching it away.

 

Leo ignored the slow rise of Isabel’ s eyebrows. He said quickly, “Come on -- do you really want to go back to that place so soon?” 

Oscar felt a lump of anger rise to his throat, but he knew he couldn’t let it show. So he said, coolly, “Not really,” and took another piece of toast and bit into it. His eyes never left Leo’s. 

Leo looked slightly chastened. “I’m sorry. That was unnecessary.” He got up, pushing his chair back so it scraped against the floor. “Let me make it up to you by showing you around, when you’re done eating.” 

Oscar put down the remains of his toast and said, “I’m done now.” 

He followed Leo out through the back door. Oscar looked at the house properly for the first time. It had once been fine example of a New England Colonial-style home, before time and the elements had worked it over. 

They went around the house and Leo pointed out a particular window-pane in one of the windows of the drawing room. A distant ancestor of his had, during the Revolutionary War, scratched her and her sweetheart’s name onto the glass with a diamond ring. When the sweetheart marched off to battle and not returned, the ancestor was heartbroken… For a few years until she married a prosperous farmer several decades older than herself. 

“Romantic, yet practical,” Oscar said. 

“It’s a family trait,” Leo replied. 

The front door opened and Jess emerged, holding a basket in her hand. Her progress was hampered by a large brown dog who seemed determined to climb into her arms. “Down, Jasper! Down, boy!” she scolded him, but Jasper remained oblivious to her disapproval. 

When Jess caught sight of them, she waved. “There you are! Are you going down to the beach? I want to go too -- and Jasper needs the exercise.” Jasper barked at the mention of his name and bolted over to Leo and pawed at his knees. Then he turned his attention to Oscar, who held out his hand. Jasper gave it a cautious lick and seemed to approve. 

Eventually, they made their way down a narrow path through a thickly wooded area, Jess and Jasper racing in front, Oscar and Leo lingering behind. The heat was rising slowly, bringing with it the smell of green, growing things. Insects buzzed past Oscar’s ear, nearly stinging, but not quite. 

Leo touched his arm and said in a low voice, “So, what kind of poses do you like best?”

Oscar said, “I just do what they tell me.” 

“So you’re good at taking directions?” 

“I can be. How about you?” 

Leo nodded, and said with a twist in his mouth. “Me? Definitely not.” 

The path ended shortly thereafter, opening up to a small, sandy beach. The ocean was grey-blue and calm and the tide was pulling out. They settled on a patch of sand and spread out the blanket Jess had brought, and put rocks on each corner to stop it from blowing away. Then Jess and Leo spent most of the time playing with Jasper, running back and forth in the surf, water and sand flying everywhere. Oscar watched them for a while before wading into the fray. Jasper barked, confused at which direction he was supposed to run. 

Eventually, the sun became too hot and they stopped to take a rest and eat and drink. Eventually, they find their way back to the house. 

The days fell away quickly. They went swimming. Jess introduced Oscar to Ivanhoe, who nibbled at his fingers for any trace of sugar. They explored the old orchard -- which was little more than a cluster of gnarled apple trees. Leo and he smoked in the backyard as the day turned into evening. The stars came out, brighter than they were in the city. Oscar stole another looked at Leo, and thought, _fuck this waiting._

Leo cocked his head and blew a cloud of smoke in Oscar’s general direction. 

Arthur came down with a student of his, Stella, who seemed to be stuck carrying most of their supplies. She was cheerful young woman, small-boned and with long, dark hair. She kept shooting apprehensive glances at Isabel, who was cooler and more unapproachable as ever.

Between Isabel and Arthur there was distance that Oscar found puzzling. He had been informed that Leo and Jess’ father had died suddenly almost ten years ago and Arthur had been their father’s closest friend. It had been natural, supposedly, that he and Isabel should get married. They seemed to tolerate each other well enough, but there was no love lost between them. 

When time came for Oscar do what he was hired to do, the whole family was present in the converted barn that was Arthur’s studio. Well, everyone except Jess, who was exiled for being too young and Jasper, for being too distracting. 

Everyone was watching Oscar as he came in and stood on the small, raised platform that would serve as his stage. Leo switched on the floodlights, which blinded Oscar temporarily. When he grew accustomed to the brightness, he became conscious of how much the sun had browned his skin, leaving a stripe of paler skin under the line of his underwear. 

“No sheets,” Arthur said, distractedly, and so Oscar let it fall on the floor and took his first pose. 

“Oh,” Stella said quietly and even Isabel took a remote sort of interest. Arthur’s gaze was distant, measuring Oscar out into pieces. Stella too was drawing, but Leo seemed determined to distract her, by hook or by crook. He stole her vine charcoal just as she was reaching for it, he kept up whispering into her ear and trying to make her laugh. She did, but then she pushed him away, saying, “You’re being a pain in the butt, okay?” 

Another pose. 

Oscar thought how stupid it would be to be jealous something he knew he couldn’t have. 

Another. 

Oscar looked up to see a face at the window. No one else noticed and he thought perhaps he had imagined it, but there it was again. Jess peered at him for moment before  
disappearing. 

Another pose. 

Isabel was talking quietly to Arthur, who did not seem to hear her. Oscar caught her eye and they shared a glance, full of unspoken understanding.  
Oscar’s arms and legs began to ache. 

Arthur was shaking his head. “No, no, no,” he said to Oscar, quietly and then getting louder. “You’re mechanical, stiff as board. Loosen up, for God’s sake!”  
“Really, Arthur, he’s a human being, not a doll you can move about to your whim,” Isabel said. Arthur stared at her and seemed to say that was _exactly_ what Oscar was. 

Isabel sighed and rubbed her temples. She said, “I need a drink. Leo, be a darling and get me one.” 

Leo got up and said, “Never fear, mother dear! The drink is already here.” And he dug into a footlocker and brought out a bottle of vodka. Or what he said was vodka. Stella bit her lip and ventured to say that maybe it wasn’t the best idea to drink anything in an artist’s studio. 

And as the sole voice of reason, she was roundly ignored. 

“The seal’s not broken,” Leo offered. 

“Give him a shot,” Arthur said. 

Leo poured out a little out into the cap and brought it to Oscar. He took a hold of Oscar’s lower lip and squeezed it, gently, and said, “Watch your head, all right?”  
Oscar swallowed the drink and glared daggers at him, but Leo smiled as if he couldn’t feel the points. 

“That’s better,” Arthur said, when Leo had move away. Isabel left soon after that, still wanting her drink, and Leo followed behind. 

The hours wore away until at last, Oscar was dismissed for the day. He wanted a shower -- or better yet, a bath. He wanted something to drink. He wanted to punch Leo’s head in. As he dressed and went out into the hot summer night, he found that he could do at least one of those things. 

A cigarette end flared briefly between Leo’s fingers. He said, a touch nervously, “Look, I’m sorry, but you’ve got to understand --” Oscar went up to him until their faces were almost touching. They were almost the same height, with Leo being a little taller, but with worse posture. 

“I understand that you’re an _asshole_ ,” Oscar said even as he flushed and thought, I sound like a fucking idiot. Leo’s mouth opened, but no smart remark followed, nothing, he was struck dumb, silent, and that was the reason, Oscar said later, that he kissed him. Leo tasted like smoke and vodka, and the kiss was thankfully short. 

They stared at each in shock until Leo swallowed harshly and said, “I told you to watch your head.” 

Oscar said, “No kidding.” 

Then he fled.

*****

Oscar’s legs were draped over the claw foot tub. The water was hot, hot, hot, piping hot and his skin flushed red under the brown of his skin. Someone was knocking on his bedroom door. It was Jess, calling him for dinner.

He said, “I’m coming!” Even to his own ears, his voice sounded strangled and unnatural. 

Dinner was made bearable by the fact that Leo wasn’t there. When asked about him, Isabel only said, “I think he went to town.” She cut a sliver of her steak and ate it delicately. Everyone else was subdued and tired. Jess sat stiffly, her face red with sunburn. Arthur didn’t speak except to ask Stella to pass the salt. Stella and Oscar made some anemic attempts at conversation, but that, too, lapsed into nothing. 

Once dinner ended, everyone scattered to their ends of the house. Oscar made a brief stop at the library and picked a book at random from the stacks. He opened the flyleaf to read _\-- From A to J, love_. He tucked it under his arm and heard the sound of a car coming down the driveway and stopping, its gears grinding to a halt. 

Oscar waited in his room. He tried reading the book but couldn’t concentrate. Why the fuck was he reading Plato anyway? Oscar put the book down on the bedside table and listened for Leo’s tread up the stairs, and sure enough, after a few minutes of waiting, he heard it. It stopped in front of his room, and Oscar didn’t wait for his knock. He opened the door and pulled Leo in by the arm. 

“I _am_ an asshole,” Leo began to say.

“Then shut up,” Oscar said, kissing him, before slamming the door shut.

“That was my father’s book,” Leo said, some time later. They were collapsed on Oscar’s bed, which was not quite big enough to accommodate them. There were freckles on his shoulder and his hair was wet and his skin smelled clean. _He must have taken a shower downstairs_ , Oscar thought, running his thumb on the nape of Leo’s neck, where his hair was buzzed short. Leo shivered and said, “Leave it to the Greeks to be sanctimonious about boy-fucking.” 

“I might have to read that now,” Oscar said, idly. 

“No need,” Leo said turning to him with a wolfish grin. “I can give you the Cliff-Notes.”

*****

The days and weeks passed quickly after that. Oscar would spend precious hours posing for Arthur, who was never satisfied, who complained if he breathed too deeply, and Stella, who was gentler, but judged everything Arthur’s exacting standards. Oscar wondered why Arthur didn’t just fire him, but it never came to that. Afterwards, when he was released, he would stumble outside, still only half-dressed and drenched with sweat, and Leo would pounce on him. They would drive along the coast in Leo’s car, and sometimes they’d find an empty school-parking lot, and Oscar would practise how to drive. Leo was, perhaps surprisingly, a good teacher, patient and not entirely unkind.

“You’re a natural,” Leo said, and here a flaw in his teaching method appeared. His hands did not stay at his sides. 

“If you keep distracting me, I might wrap this thing around a lamppost,” Oscar warned. 

Leo gave aa short laugh and said, “Do it. It’s just a consolation prize anyway.” 

“Consolation for what?”

“Eyes on the road,” Leo said lightly. 

It came out later, when they were parked near a roadside shack that sold funnel-cakes in the summer. 

Leo said, “I left school without taking a degree,” Leo said. “I suppose I couldn’t cope. I sat down for a final exam and got up again, and handed the professor a blank sheet for my essay.” He rubbed his sticky fingers and frowned. 

Oscar whistled, impressed. 

“I got kicked out of art school,” he confessed. 

Leo looked up and brightened. “How?” 

“Well, I wasn’t very talented, I couldn’t pay the tuition, and I was discovered in a supply closet with an instructor.” 

Oscar ate another funnel-cake. 

“He didn’t even raise my grade. Bastard.” 

Leo’s accompanying laugh startled a curious seagull into flight.

*****

The fan on Leo's writing desk rattled out an unintelligible code. Oscar rolled over with a groan and cracked open his eyes. The window, open to let in the breeze, was still dark, though there was a glimmer of light across the horizon. He sat up and looked around.

There were books everywhere. Oscar remembered overturning a tower of them when he had stumbled into the room, back against the door. Leo had made a displeased noise, but had cleared it up with a sweep of his feet. Books. Some maps, pinned to the wall, red thread connecting the dots. A typewriter sat, squat and impassive, on the desk, under a thick layer of dust.

The room was horribly, stiflingly hot. 

Oscar’s head felt like it weighed a million pounds, sweat ran down the back of his neck, before he wiped it away. He felt a press of Leo’s hand on the small of his back, a cool point in a sea of heat. 

"Can't sleep?" said Leo, turning towards him, his eyes bright. 

"It's too damn hot," Oscar said, pulling his hair out of his face with a sigh. 

“You know, that hair of yours must be giving you trouble.” Leo said, sitting up. “I can cut it for you.” 

Oscar couldn’t keep the doubt from seeping into his voice. “You know how to cut hair?” 

“How hard can it be? Besides,” Leo said, reaching over to grasp a handful of Oscar’s hair. He hissed in protest, but Leo went on, remorseless. “My mother used to cut our hair for us when we were younger. And I took care of it at school. I know the basics pretty well.” 

“No, wait,” Oscar said, shaking himself out of Leo’s hold and scowling. “I don’t think I’d want you to come at me with a sharp pair of scissors.” 

“It’s driving you crazy,” Leo said and it was true. It felt as if Oscar’s head was in a furnace. And that was how he found himself, well after midnight, sitting on the lid of the toilet, waiting for Leo to come back with the scissors. The heat, he thought, must’ve melted his brain, because he waited quite a long time for Leo to come back. At least the bathroom was clean -- porcelain fixtures, white tiles. 

Leo came in with a big, shiny pair of scissors, which he snapped with some satisfaction. “I had to wait until the coast was clear. My mother likes to hide this. Come on.”  
Seeing the frankly apprehensive look on Oscar’s face, he said firmly, “It’s too late to back out now.” 

Oscar, despite all of his other flaws, did not think he was a coward. He nodded stiffly and submitted to it. It felt good, the cool metal sliding against his hot skin. Leo’s hands were sure, mapping across the Oscar’s head, sniping there, tucking here. Oscar saw a flash of pink in the corner of his eye, and Leo snapped a barrette -- an old one of Jess’, no doubt -- into a chunk of hair that fell over Oscar’s eyes. 

“My, you look as pretty as any prince on his throne,” Leo said, his mouth full of bobby pins.

“I sincerely do hate you right now,” Oscar said. 

“I know,” Leo said, sniping away. 

When it was over, Oscar got up, his hair spilling from his lap onto the floor, like black commas on a white sheet of paper. 

“I’ll clean that up tomorrow,” Leo said, leading him to the mirror. He dusted off Oscar’s shoulder and leaned in. “So,” he said, practically breathing in Oscar’s ear, “how does Samson feel?” 

It was not a bad haircut, per se, though it was somewhat uneven in some spots. Oscar blinked, unused to the reflection that looked back at him. He said, “I feel naked.”  
“Not a new experience for you, I’d say.” 

Oscar raised his eyebrows and said, “If I’m Samson, wouldn’t that make you Delilah?”

“Of course,” Leo said, “it’s astonishing that you haven’t seen my alter-ego by now. I look very good in a bikini, I’ll have you know.” 

“I didn’t realize the Old Testament contained many bikinis, though I leave all that to you, as the scholar,” Oscar turning to him. Leo took a step towards him, his mouth twitching. But Oscar warded him off “I should take a shower.” 

He ran a cautious hand over the back of his neck. “Do you think this is grounds for Arthur to fire me?” 

Leo’s lips curled up into a sneer. “He wouldn’t dare.” 

“All right, go to bed,” Oscar said. Leo looked at him, questioningly, and Oscar shrugged. “I don’t want to get hair all over you. I’ll go back to my room.”  
“I don’t mind, you know,” Leo with a pout, but he let him go. 

Oscar had not taken three step from Leo’s door when he ran into -- almost literally -- Stella, who was coming in on the opposite way. 

“Oh, sorry!” they both said, eyeing each other curiously. 

“I was just getting a glass of water,” Stella said, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. The stairs to the kitchen was opposite of where she was headed. 

“Me too,” Oscar said. “But I don’t think I’m very thirsty now.” After another awkward moment, they both turned around, and Oscar heard the click of a door opening and closing behind him, before he went into his own room. 

After his shower, Oscar lay in bed and couldn’t fall asleep. The clock ticked, somewhere, but otherwise, the house was quiet. Outside, there was a low murmur of insect noises, but Oscar turned over with a sigh and missed the noise of the city.

*****

Reactions over Oscar’s new haircut were mixed. Jess couldn’t keep from staring. She sawed at her waffles furiously, muttering, “Leo ruins _everything_.” Then she hunched over, and began feeding Jasper bits of her breakfast under the table.

“Jessica, your posture,” Isabel said, her eyes not moving from the newspaper spread in front of her. She had taken in the change in stride, though she noted that her scissors were still missing. 

Arthur proved largely indifferent, to everything in general, but Oscar in particular. Whatever fascination he had had for Oscar was now long dead. He said only, “It’s _your_ head, after all,” and gave a sidelong look at Isabel, who serenely sipped at her coffee.

Stella watched them, warily, before saying that she liked it, anyway.

“How nice of you to say so,” Isabel murmured, taking a sip of coffee. 

“I’m glad you think so,” Stella said, looking up her with innocent eyes. Though smile Isabel gave her would have made a lesser mortal quail; but Stella did not seem to be discomfited.

Leo only came down later, after breakfast was over and only Jess and Oscar were left, to clear it all away. “Good morning!” he said, after a jaw-cracking yawn.

“Mother says you have to bring her car into the shop, it’s been making noises the entire week, and you know that Adam is only there in the mornings,” Jess said, putting down the plates with more than necessary force. 

“Fine,” Leo said slowly, picking up an apple from the fruit bowl. “Oscar, do you want to come with me?” 

“Oscar offered to help me clean up the kitchen,” Jess said. 

“Jesus. I hope you’re in a better mood when I get back. Bye, Oscar,” Leo said, wandering out of the kitchen.

“See you,” Oscar said to his retreating back. 

“You think I’m being mean,” Jess said, as she turned the water on and filled the sink with suds. “I guess I am. When Leo was sick, he was all mother could think about. I went for months without seeing her. And when I did, she would only criticize me. She said I was unfeeling, unsympathetic.” 

Her lips quirked, and Oscar wondered if she was thinking of the irony of Isabel calling anyone unfeeling. 

Jess scrubbed fiercely at a coffee mug, trying to eliminate the rings around its lip. “I don’t really hate him,” she said, biting her lip. “He’s my big brother, for God’s sake.”  
Oscar took the coffee cup from her and washed off the suds and then dried it. 

“I never had any brothers or sisters,” he began to say, knowing as he said it that it was the wrong thing to say. 

“So you don’t know what it’s like,” Jess said. “Leo _always_ got what he wanted but he still…” She trailed off and handed Oscar another plate to dry.  
Taking it, Oscar said, carefully, “When was he sick? What happened?” 

“No one told me anything. I had to find out from that horrible Birdy Hofstadt from school that my brother tried to --” She stopped, suddenly abashed.  
“It doesn’t matter, it’s over now,” she finished lamely. 

Oscar put down his dish rag and the plate he had been drying and turned to face Jess. He gave her an extremely awkward, somewhat wet hug. She hugged him back, for a moment, before pulling away, with a shaky laugh. 

“Oscar!” she said softly, with a slight shake of her head. “Oscar, don’t you like girls at all?” 

“I’m too old for you, Jess,” Oscar said immediately.

“Bullshit, as if that’s all.” Jess paused, and said quickly, “Don’t tell my mother I swore.”

*****

“Oscar, may I speak with you?” Isabel came up to him and smiled, something very much like Leo’s smile, and Oscar found himself nodding.

“Of course,” he said, following her into her study. 

She waited a moment before closing the door, allowing Oscar to look around. It was a dour-looking room, dominated by an enormous desk, which was stuffed with papers. Framed photographs provided the only stop of interest in the room -- most of them were of Leo and Jess, some together, some alone. There was a photograph of Isabel when she was younger, looking like a mixture of Katharine Hepburn and the women in Hitchcock films, ice and fire and something more deadly than either. 

“This has always been the family home; I grew up here,” Isabel said when she caught Oscar looking at the pictures. She crossed the room and took a seat on on the big, leather chair behind the desk. She gestured to the chair opposite. “Won’t you sit?” 

Oscar did, and felt as though he was submitting himself to a interview to a job he was in no way qualified for. He cleared his throat and said, “But you live in the city now?”  
“Well, now, this place is a bit out of the way,” Isabel said. “The children like to be with their friends. But they always spent their summers here. Are your parents still alive, Oscar?”  
Oscar said. “My mother died when I was in high school and my father… wasn’t around when I was growing up.”

“Ah,” Isabel said, leaning back into her chair. “Oh, I’m sorry.”

There was a short silence, before she started again. “I must say, when Arthur told me about you, I expected something very different.”

Oscar smiled, though perhaps his lips merely curled upwards. “Do I disappoint? Or are you relieved?” 

“Neither, at the moment at least,” she said coolly. 

“You’re still reserving judgment, then?” 

“I always do.” 

_Tick-tock_ went the clock as they stared each other down. It was high-noon, white hat versus black hat, a lonely wind tore through the deserted town. Oscar blinked, once, and conceded defeat. Isabel looked at him almost affectionately, as if she thought he had done well. 

She said, “My son is very fond of you.” 

_And this is the part where she sends me packing_ , Oscar thought as he nodded, his heart tightening in his chest. “I believe so.” 

Isabel shook her head and frown a little, a line appearing suddenly on her forehead, between her eyes.

Then her face smoothed over as if it had been wiped blank and she said, composedly, “Leo is very passionate and very willing to get carried away, as much as he shouldn’t. Both of my children are -- I’m not sure where they get that from, my late husband was not a very demonstrative man. But,” here she paused and looked at Oscar, her eyes very blue and utterly serious. “I know that in his heart, Leo knows his duty, and he will do it.” 

Oscar got up and left, feeling he had already been dismissed.

Isabel did not call him back.

*****

All of Arthur’s work that summer had coalesced around a single portrait of Oscar. Everyone was used to him working very slowly, Leo explained to Oscar, as they waited for the guests to arrive for the unveiling of the portrait. It was not unusual for Arthur to take months -- years, even -- on one painting. That he should have finished so quickly was remarkable and worth celebrating. They had all spent a last few days working frantically to bring the house and grounds up to snuff. Oscar was instructed to paint the facade of the house. Leo, who was clipping the hedges, watched his progress, shouting out encouragements and advice at odd intervals.

Later, he reapplied sunscreen on Oscar’s nose, and laughed when he said it smarted.

Isabel had hired a grim-faced woman, Clara, from town to clean the house. The roar of the vacuum-cleaning swept through the house and small clouds of dust escaped out of the open windows. Jess found an abandoned nest in one of the fireplaces upstairs. She brought it out into the yard and placed it on the ground. Jasper barked sharply in alarm. 

“Chimney swifts,” Leo said, pausing from his work of beating a carpet. He leaned against broom, using it as a cane. “They used to nest in chimneys in the winter -- but of course, we don’t much use those anymore, nor the house in winter.”

Isabel called them for lunch, and the day passed quickly away. 

The guests appeared on the morning of the portrait’s unveiling, wearing light summer dresses and suits that were nonetheless far more expensive than anything Oscar could afford. Some of them talked lightly about Leo’s future -- or lack of one. “I don’t understand what you’re doing now,” said a sharp-faced man who had been Leo’s roommate at school. “You just disappeared.” 

“I’ve been writing,” Leo said, sipping at his flute of champagne -- part of a trousseau from an long-dead great-aunt who had been an heiress in her day. “Lurid romances, mostly.” He caught Oscar’s eye and winked. Oscar looked away. 

When the portrait was revealed, Oscar was relieved. It looked nothing like him, he realized, though he remembered that the pose had been difficult and Arthur had made him hold it more than a few days. The figure in the painting looked tortured, almost, his skin almost too smooth, his eyes alien. Not like Oscar at all. 

“It’s very good,” he heard someone say, uncertainly. 

“At least it’s not that abstract crap,” said another.

Lanterns were lit, and the guests eventually wandered inside the house, for dinner.

Oscar collected abandoned glasses and platters, flutes of champagne left for the bugs. He crushed still-lit cigarette butts and wondered why he was still here. The very last of his summer earnings sat in his suitcase, stuffed into a sock. He could beg for a ride into the nearest town, buy a bus-ticket to the city… 

“There you are -- I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” Leo said as he emerged from the dusky shadows, a bottle of champagne tucked under his arm. His pockets bulged out and clinked dangerously. 

Above Arthur’s studio, in the old barn, there was a hayloft. Though, Leo said, dragging out an old mattress on the floor, it had been almost sixty years since anyone used it as such. They both coughed at the dust they had raised up. The headlights from the departing guests threw brief, intense shadows against the wall. They huddled together and concentrated on drinking. 

Eventually, however, Leo pressed his cool hands against Oscar’s hot face and said, “Are you going to break my heart, Oscar?” 

“Are you going to break mine?” 

“Yes,” Leo said, leaning in for a kiss. “Yes, yes. Yes.”

*****

They wandered through the old orchard at dawn of Oscar’s last day. They were still wearing ttheir party-clothes -- Oscar’s shirt was torn from a loose nail. The apples in the trees were hard and green, like small envies. But still, Leo reached up and picked one.

"Unoriginal sin," he said, biting in. 

Oscar gave him a side-eyed looked. “You’ll get sick.”

“I never get sick. Strong as an ox,” Leo said, flexing his biceps. Oscar, as quick as a snake, picked up and flicked a rotten apple at him. It hit him on the chest and splattered. Leo curled his lips in disgust and brushed it off. 

“You’ll ruin me,” he muttered and Oscar snorted and shook his head. Then he shivered. It was still cold in the orchard, and somewhere along the way, he had lost his shoes. His feet were wet with dew and he stumbled for a moment, his toe hitting a sharp rock. 

Leo’s hand shot out and grabbed him and steadied him. Oscar took a hold of Leo’s hand, tracing a finger down the faint scars he found on the wrist. “Tell me about this,” he said and Leo pulled away with a wry smile. 

“If I told you everything about me, you’d get bored with me in a hurry.” Leo rolled down his sleeves and frowned, brushing away apple stains more determinedly.  
Oscar decided to try another approach. He said, “Your mother knows about us.” He watched a myriad of expressions race quickly over Leo’s face -- surprise, anger, even amusement -- before it settled into resignation. 

Leo shrugged. “I suppose that’s fair, my mother knows everything about me. It’s a good thing my father’s already dead or else things would’ve gotten oedipal between us in a bad way. Arthur doesn’t count, of course.” He said the last part with a definite air of scorn. 

Oscar put his hand on his face. “He’s not really --” 

“All there? I know. What wreck war will make of man -- though, I have to say, I don’t have much sympathy for him. He’s always been kind of a bastard,” Leo said, after a moment of consideration. Then he trained his attention back to Oscar. “So what are you going to do? Are you scared of my mother? Or turned on by her? Or both?” 

“Fuck you,” Oscar said, but without any heat. 

“Promises, promises,” Leo sang out before Oscar stopped him with another kiss. “Will you write to me?” 

“I --” It was Oscar’s turn to shrug now. “If you write to me.”


	3. Chapter 3

There were no letters, though they could have been lost in the constant shuffle of addresses that marked Oscar’s return to New York. 

Oscar found that he loved the city more fiercely now that he had been away from it. The noise, the lights, the smells, all of it he had missed and he had longed for. New York was in his blood. And autumn was the best time to be in New York, when mist crept into the parks and blurred the edges between the real and imaginary. 

This fierce feeling of love lasted him for a long time. Oscar was still, at heart, a New Yorker. But he was not always a happy one. He half-remembered dragging his feet in broken sandals down Fifth Avenue, drunk as all hell. “I wanted to be somebody, but --” he tried to explain to Cece, trying to tap into some lost well of her sympathy. 

It worked, anyway. 

“WASPs,” she sighed, stroking his hair. “Isn’t the number one message in that book I wouldn’t read in high school -- not to get involved with WASPs?” 

“ _The Great Gatsby_?” he asked, lifting his head, puzzled. 

“That’s the one,” she said, rolling her eyes. 

He had lost his room, of course. He slept on the floor of Cece’s living room and borrowed a suit from the young undertaker down the hall and went around, trying to sell some of his better drawings. 

He went in through the wrong door (inscribed _Hatchett and Sons_ ) and after showing his drawings for the hundredth time, the clerk took pity on Oscar, in his too-small suit, smelling faintly of formaldehyde, and sent him to see Mr. Hatchett (senior). 

The elderly Mr. Hatchett liked his looks and told him frankly that his firm did not deal with living artists (as talented as they might be, and here he looked at Oscar pityingly), but instead they acquired private collections from their owners (usually elderly, often lonely) to be put on sale when the owners died, for museums and other collectors to bid on.  
And they were _always_ in search of a fresh face. 

Hatchett, in an attitude of great generosity, offered to hire Oscar as a junior agent for the firm. “But first,” he said ponderously, “you must buy a new suit.”  
Oscar thought about this offer and decided to accept. They shook on it and Oscar went off to find a new suit. 

He liked his new job well enough. His clients were, indeed, usually elderly and often lonely. He was polite, and handsome, and attentive. He listened carefully to everything they said. Wayward children, missing pets, lost loves and investments, Oscar learned all about them. He found himself wishing, often enough that his clients would not so often die, and leave him. Cece accused him of selling out, but Oscar thought that it was not exactly right. He had sold himself before, but now he had a higher price. When his clients did die, they often would leave the management of their paintings and other artworks to Hatchett and Sons, and Oscar got a fat paycheck at the end of the month. He became an agent, and then senior agent, and when it came time for young Mr. Hatchett to take the reins, it was Oscar who was calling the shots. 

After all, life was only a game, but one many objectives. It was easy, say, to lose one (true love), and gain another (economical stability). 

He had other lovers, of course, but they had been, for the most part, businesslike in their affections. Oscar did not mind it in the least. Nights of passion were all well and good, but he had to get up early in the morning and comb through the obituaries. 

Oscar bought a brand new red leather jacket with his first earnings. It was beautiful, it was perfect, and even when fashions changed -- the collar became too wide, the jacket too long, even when it began to look perfectly ridiculous, he kept it still because it was his, and only his.

Mrs. Goldberg, who owned a lovely Vermeer, liked the jacket especially. She was one of the first people Mr. Hatchett sent Oscar to see, and the two of them became old friends in short order. Mrs. Goldberg never seemed ready to die, she always had far too much to see to. 

One day, she patted Oscar’s cheek affectionately and asked him why he wasn’t married. Oscar smiled -- no longer boyishly, since this morning he had found several grey hairs on his pillow, and the corners of his mouth had been creased now for years-- and said, “I’ve never found the right person.” 

She patted his cheek with a hand that was soft and powdery. Her eyes were very bright. “Oh, whoever it was sure did a number on you.” 

"It's the opposite, I think," Oscar said thoughtfully, and bit into one of Mrs. Goldberg’s signature chocolate-chip cookies -- and though he had seen the Tollhouse wrapper in the garbage can coming in -- he never let on. 

He was still nibbling on a cookie when he went past himself in a shop-window. Oscar stopped short, and turned back -- it was an art gallery, and sure enough, there he was, aged twenty-five and slightly sullen, his body twisted in a beautiful, entirely untenable pose. 

The cookie slipped from his hand, he didn’t see it go. The painting looked different now than it had then. After a moment of complete show, Oscar experienced something entirely opposite of what Dorian Grey. Oscar began to laugh. 

He looked so … silly, up there, frowning and tragic and -- well, yes, beautiful, _but_. He shook his head. Instead of mourning his youth (in which he was often unhappy), Oscar found himself happy to be what he was -- and in his contented middle-age. He could even afford to be more generous with his younger self. 

_I am no longer that boy_ , he thought. _Thank God._

A movement behind the glass attracted his attention. He recognized the slightly stooped posture of a blond man, who had taken off his hat coming to the gallery, and had gone over to embrace a willowy woman dressed in black, and then bent down to talk to a child that she had with her. 

It was Leo, Oscar recognized him immediately. It seemed that he _had_ done his duty. 

Oscar turned away, suddenly stricken. The wind felt cold on his face and for the first time in years, he felt terribly lonely. He hurried down the street, wanting to go back to the warmth of his own apartment, when he heard someone calling his name. 

“Oscar! Oscar!” It was Leo, and he was waving him down. Reluctantly, Oscar retracted his steps until they were facing each other, the first time in twenty years. While Oscar had acquired a few comfortable layers of fat between himself and his expensive shirt and coat, time had thinned Leo out, hollowed out his cheeks, and lightened his hair.  
The wind picked up again and winter sun sparkled against the dark frame of Leo’s glasses. He blinked, as if at a loss. 

“Hello,” Oscar said, uncertain as to where to begin. He tried not to stare, but he could not quite help doing so. He glanced down and noted that there was no ring on Leo’s finger. He looked up again when Leo started speaking.

Leo’s voice was halting at first, but then grew stronger, more confident. “I was just at the retrospective on Arthur’s work. Of course, he’s dead now, and hardly mourned. No, I suppose Jess did like him… She’s here now, with her son, Adam, would you like to meet them?” 

“You’re not married,” Oscar said flatly. 

Leo raised his eyebrows. “Married? Me? God, no. You?” 

“Of course not.” 

They stood awkwardly for a moment before Oscar said, “I have a car now.” 

“Really?” Leo smiled. “That’s good to hear.”

“Yes I -- well, I hardly use it, but it’s useful when I have to get out of town.” 

“I can imagine,” Leo said, tugging his sleeves over his fingers. He wasn’t wearing any gloves.

On impulse, Oscar touched his hands for a moment, before pulling back, feeling a little ashamed of himself. He said, “This is a little awkward.” 

“Oh yes, it’s excruciating,” Leo said, putting his hands back his back. He looked expectant. 

“Leo, listen --” Oscar struggled to think of what else to say. Finally, he settled on: “We can’t talk here, we’re blocking the sidewalk. Do you want to get a drink or something?”  
It seemed to him that Leo was going to refuse, and Oscar prepared himself for rejection. But instead, with a grin, familiar in its wryness, Leo nodded. He said, “Let’s do that. But first I have to speak to Jess, so she doesn’t get worried.” 

“All right,” Oscar said, and followed him back. Leo noted, as they walked back to the gallery, that Isabel was still alive and still gorgeously autocratic, and now ruled her Florida retirement community with an iron fist. 

And all through city streets rose a wondrous chorus, the car horns and the shouts and alarms, all the seething, messy sounds of the city, the roars and whimpers, the crashes and cymbals. Oscar hardly heard any of it. 

Instead, it seemed like the years were shucked away from them both, with every step they took. 

Back again.

**Author's Note:**

> The reference to The Phaedrus is stolen from Mary Renault's _The Charioteer_. 
> 
> Thank you, Elleth and Oshun for beta-ing this beast. All remaining mistakes are my own.


End file.
